Summer in February

by Jonathan Smith

  ‘The Morning Ride?’

  ‘A possible title.’

  ‘Titles don’t matter, do they? It’s the painting … and the painting is wonderful.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He opened his eyes.

  ‘Truly.’

  Her voice was round with warmth, rounder than he had heard it before.

  He moved a bit more, slightly restless. His chair creaked and groaned. She felt a little fear. He waved his right hand airily, then ran it across his face in an exhausted gesture.

  ‘Tell you what, Blote?’

  ‘What can you tell me?’

  ‘I can show a lot of things I can’t say, can your expert eye tell you that?’

  ‘I’m not an expert.’

  ‘Bugger being an expert, use your eyes, bugger the experts, forget I used the word.’

  He sat up just a little, but stayed leaning back, resting on his elbow, with his legs still in the same position, asking:

  ‘So, what other good paintings have you seen?’

  ‘I’m very keen on Reynolds and Gainsborough.’

  He roused and slapped himself.

  ‘Reynolds and Gainsborough! You’re keen on them? So am I! So you are an expert all right, you’re a first-class judge.’

  ‘What makes me one?’

  ‘Gainsborough was a Suffolk man too.’

  ‘And that is important?’

  ‘Yes, yes … and your aim must be to be as good as Gainsborough. Or better!’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Good! Now … tell me something else.’

  They looked uneasily at each other. He tapped his boots.

  ‘Is Joey calling back for you?’

  ‘I really don’t know … we didn’t make any plans.’

  ‘Left rather abruptly, didn’t he? Probably had an appointment … so to speak.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He grinned. ‘Didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Shall we go for a walk?’ Florence suggested, and stood up to reinforce it.

  He stayed where he was, waving his arms in all directions, as if to encompass all the footpaths and cliffs and rock pools of Cornwall.

  ‘Out and about, you mean … If you like. If that is what you want? Never can tell what women want. Never could.’

  ‘But you’re exhausted,’ she said, ‘you stay where you are … I’ll go now. I think I should.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  He rose immediately to his feet, almost stumbling, rubbing his face, then saw out of the window two village children swagger down the lane and start to throw some small stones at Merrilegs. He bawled at them and leapt down the steps two at a time to give chase. With a small smile of passive acceptance Florence buttoned up her coat, as if to say that-could-have-been-worse.

  He was waiting at the bottom of the outside steps. Going down to meet him she said:

  ‘There is something I want to ask you.’

  He smiled up at her.

  ‘It’s not by any ghastly chance about my drinking or swearing?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘And you’re not going to pry into the fox business?’

  ‘No, it’s not that either. It’s that when you’re painting you … sometimes you …’

  He stood waiting, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sometimes you become very angry and scrape bits off. And, well … I couldn’t help noticing it.’

  ‘I do, yes, because that bit is bad, too much or too little paint, it’s as simple as that. Why d’you ask?’

  ‘Because Stanhope Forbes says we should hold the brush very lightly as if we were holding a tiny bird, and it’s often when you hit the canvas hard, and I wondered why you took … or employed that approach? It’s so different from anything I’ve ever seen before.’

  He had gone white. The muscles in his face stiffened. She stopped. He pointed to the wicker seat by the easel. The two boys who threw the stones were watching at the end of the lane.

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘I’d rather walk, if you still want to, you must be ready for a—’

  ‘Sit down!’

  Some alarmist rooks took off from the treetops.

  He grabbed her arm and pushed her fiercely into the chair. He stood above her, then bent down so that his face was at her level. Panic came near her. His nose was up against hers.

  ‘So you couldn’t help noticing, eh, and you wanted to know why I bang into the canvas? And why I put too much paint on? So you’d better look, hadn’t you? Look!’

  She averted her eyes, only to see the two boys watching all this. She looked at the trees. But he took hold of her face and wrenched it hard so that she had nowhere left to look but into his eyes. He held her face in a lock. He was crushing her cheekbones together. They were going to crack.

  ‘And … you can see a mismatch. One looks quite clear … no … in fact it might be a bit bloodshot. The other is a bit like a smoky marble … but it’s not a smoky marble. Look! I said, LOOK!’

  ‘I’m looking,’ she whispered, and she looked from right eye to left to right. The pain in her face was intense.

  ‘And the reason, my … beautiful Florence, my dear … Blote, my lovely Miss Carter-Wood … is that I am completely blind in my right eye.’

  She uttered a small sound.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘blind.’

  She wanted to put her hands over her face because she could not hold his gaze any longer, but the way he had positioned his elbows prevented this. She could not bear this assault, his breathing, the reddish-brown bristles on his cheeks, the hairs in his nostrils.

  ‘And that is why this,’ he removed his right hand, ‘bumps into that.’

  And on ‘that’ he lifted his right hand as if to smash her face but he only moved two fingers slowly towards her, and they jabbed into her soft cheek with a force which he neither controlled nor she expected.

  Her heart pumped hard. Sweat mixed with her scent.

  ‘And that happened, because I do not have bi-noc-ular vision.’

  ‘I see,’ she said.

  ‘Do you? Oh, good!’

  He was only twenty then, ten years or more ago, and staying with his Aunt Polly on her farm at Mulbarton, not all that far from Norwich. Only twenty but already drinking too much and working too hard; only twenty but he had already won plenty of prizes and been catapulted out of plenty of pubs. But it was a good day to be out with Aunt Polly’s dogs, crossing the wide fields, his mouth full of banter and oaths and, to crown a good day as good days should be crowned, the prospect on his return of pushing through a black oak door to sausages and mash and good beer.

  With him there were two dogs and a puppy and Alfred never could resist a puppy. He loved the silly things. He rolled around in the barn or in the fields with the puppy, a boy at heart, a kid letting the puppy lick him, a bit of a young puppy himself, when suddenly the two dogs spotted a hare and the chase was on, and Alfred himself always loved a chase and no lively puppy likes to be left behind when there’s fun in the air. Across one bumpy field they chased, across another, with Alfred and the puppy doing their level best to keep in touch with the front runners.

  Alfred made hunting horn sounds as they came to a hedge and a stile. Over went one dog. Over went the second dog, but the puppy couldn’t climb it or quite get a footing or quite squirm under it either, so Alfred picked the little fellow up and held back the hawthorn with his right elbow, and dropped the puppy on the other side.

  Keen to keep going with the dogs he tried to take the stile too quickly himself, the bent hawthorn spray rebounded from his elbow and he felt as if someone had fired a needle into his right eye. He stumbled back, swearing, rubbing his eyeball, with water now coming out of both wincing eyes. He reeled around in a small circle, treading in cow pats, with a dirty yellow handkerchief over his right eye. He cursed the bloody stupid bush and tore off the spray, cutting his hand a little as he did so.

  When he took
the handkerchief away, and wiped off the tears, there was a fog falling. He stood still. He looked at an oak tree with his left eye, covering his right eye with his hand. All right, more or less. If he put his hand over his left eye, however, the world was white-grey with a red edge. And the oak tree? What oak tree? He could only hear the dogs yapping and church bells on the wind. By the time he stumbled back half an hour later into the farmyard the fog was red.

  That evening, in Mulbarton Village Hall, with a patch over his eye and introducing himself as Alfred the Pirate, he held himself steady on the back of a wooden chair, and led the choruses and sang two acceptably clean songs. By popular request he then recited some Surtees and some Longfellow. He made no mention of the accident but drank too much in a forlorn attempt to ease the pain. ‘My stupid fault’ was as far as he would go. By the time, bandaged, he arrived at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, some weeks later, it was far too late.

  So that was that. Still, as he sometimes said over a pint, ‘In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.’

  Over the years Alfred made a point of collecting the names of other artists who were afflicted with eye problems: Durer, El Greco, Reynolds, Turner, Constable, Whistler, Degas, Monet … ‘and’ (he added with a self-punishing bark) ‘Munnings’.

  The Water Diviner

  Gilbert stepped off his Waverley and offered the handlebars to Joey.

  ‘Would you like to ride it?’

  ‘I would, yes.’

  ‘Well, do. I’m sure you’ll have no problem.’

  Joey settled himself on the saddle, with the tip of his toes just touching the ground. Grinning apologetically at Gilbert he did a tentative, wobbly circuit around the cove, narrowly missing the pile of large granite blocks which were waiting to be carted away to London, and then shaving the sea wall. Gilbert lit a cigarette and watched Joey’s uncertain, lively progress. There was something about Joey which reminded him not only of Sammy (and Florence) but also of a keen young subaltern arriving to join his regiment, open, fresh-faced and full of hope.

  ‘Keep going, Joey,’ he called out.

  ‘Just another minute, may I?’

  ‘As long as you like, but keep up the momentum, don’t ease off, press hard, harder, that’s it!’

  Joey shouted:

  ‘How far up the hill can you go, Gilbert, without getting off?’

  ‘Farther than you!’

  ‘Bet you can’t.’

  ‘Go on then, let’s see how strong your legs are.’

  Both men knew they were talking to each other like boys and they both liked it. Joey made a big run at the slope and reached the bend just above ‘Lamorna’ Birch’s house, then, having done the hard part, gave up much earlier than he need have done. Gilbert was disappointed, but still managed to say, ‘Good effort,’ as Joey returned with a diagonal skid, ‘and do borrow it whenever you’d like.’

  ‘Let’s go and see Alfred, shall we?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Blote’s up there too.’

  ‘Is she? Oh well, another time would do equally well.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Gilbert, she was asking after you only this morning.’

  Gilbert stubbed out his Capstan on the sea wall.

  ‘I don’t want to interrupt anything.’

  ‘What’s there to interrupt, he’s just painting her, that’s all. You do annoy me when you talk like that!’

  ‘We could go to the rock pools. Why don’t we?’

  Joey placed Gilbert’s bicycle carefully against the sea wall, holding it there a second to ensure it did not topple over.

  ‘I mean,’ Joey said, ‘the man’s a genius, isn’t he, let’s face it, he’s one in a million.’

  Quite so, Gilbert nodded, a man in a million, so what is the point? He kicked some clay off his boots.

  ‘And how is your painting progressing, Joey?’

  ‘Let’s talk about what you’ve been doing, Gilbert. If you wouldn’t mind. Blote’s always asking, “Exactly what does Gilbert do?”’

  ‘Me? Exactly? Oh, usual things, old chap, visiting the tenant farmers, collecting rents, mostly on the move, basic jobs you know, coming and going. You know, there are over thirty small farms on the Colonel’s land, over thirty, so I might take up A.J.’s kind offer of his second horse sometime. So many of them are off the beaten track, miles from each other, and that will test the Waverley to the limit.’

  To show that there was no lack of respect in the comment Gilbert patted his bicycle.

  ‘Are you a good horseman, Gilbert?’

  ‘I’ve always ridden, yes.’

  ‘Do you ride with the hounds?’

  ‘No, used to as a boy, but I’ve lost interest. Tell you what though, I’m just off to see the water diviner, over at Tregiffian … It’s the third meeting I’ve had with her this month, and I think we’re getting somewhere.’

  ‘With her?’ Joey’s voice was a scattering of exclamation marks.

  ‘Yes. I’ve always been deeply suspicious of the type, but after spending an hour with her last Monday I’m convinced she’s rather a good sort. She could help Lamorna.’

  Gilbert was noted for his broad categories of humankind: poor type, good sort, very good sort. Joey saw the opportunity to tease.

  ‘And what turned her from a poor type to a good sort?’

  ‘She found three sources of water.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  Gilbert affectionately punched Joey.

  ‘You artists! Heads in the clouds! You chaps drink and wash, don’t you, at least let’s hope so, so you must know how important water is going to be for this whole community. Have you thought of that? The number of people living here in Lamorna is rising every month. I can hardly keep up with you all, and we have to provide good water for the farmers, for the artists, for every home in fact.’ He pointed at the sea. ‘That’s no help, is it?’

  ‘Never really thought about it, Gilbert, sorry.’

  ‘Well, do think about it, old chap. Life’s not all canvases and aquariums.’

  And they leant shoulder to shoulder, looking out to the Lizard, while Gilbert described his daily work at Boskenna. He was i/c the men who packed the flowers, i/c rent collection, and now entrusted with the whole question of the estate’s water supply.

  ‘We’re in safe hands with you,’ Joey said with his open smile.

  ‘So you keep telling me.’

  The truth was Gilbert worried over the problem of potential building sites for the new houses to be built on the cliffs, worried where exactly the land needed to be levelled, wondered if improvements could be made to outbuildings and whether or not there was any conceivable use for the various sheds dotted here and there, apparently at random, around the fields and coastal slopes. Colonel Paynter saw very little value to man, woman or beast in this rickety hut or that derelict shed, but Gilbert wanted to see more artists’ studios. He saw potential. Surely every building could, with a little effort, be cleaned up, made safe and used? At the moment the Colonel was unconvinced but had promised a thorough review once Gilbert had a complete inventory.

  ‘So that’s it,’ Gilbert said, ‘for what it’s worth … My average day.’

  ‘I’ll tell Blote, she’ll be fascinated.’

  Gilbert grinned sheepishly.

  ‘Will she? Sounds pretty mundane to me.’

  ‘No, not a bit of it. Portrait of a man in the open air. Right up her street.’

  ‘Not always the open air, I’m afraid.’

  ‘All right … Gilbert among the daffodils then … Gilbert up the ladder.’

  Gilbert climbing dusty ladders made dangerous by missing rungs, poking his head through cobwebs and out of holes in the roof; checking flues, testing the butts for rainwater, cycling along lanes, pressing plaster to see if it crumbled, helping the men push carts clogged with mud, packing flowers into boxes, Gilbert at the very top of a house, then Gilbert ducking into cellars, into the world of cold stone, of slugs and frogs and slither.


  It was though, Joey sensed, only a half insight, a privileged momentariness. There was so much of Gilbert one was not allowed to know. He was that kind of man, the courteous sensitive man it was not done to press.

  ‘Promise me something, though, Gilbert?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘You’ll come roller-skating with us one Saturday in Penzance. Please. I’ve promised Blote I’ll round everyone up.’

  Gilbert moved away from the wall, seeing the rain closing towards them from round the point. They would be lucky to escape. Joey tightened the straps on his haversack.

  ‘If I can get away,’ Gilbert said.

  ‘On a Saturday? Oh, come along, you can’t work all the time, it’s the most terrific fun, you’ll see, especially if everyone comes.’

  ‘Everyone?’

  ‘Yes, so let’s go and see Blote and A.J. They’ll persuade you if I can’t.’

  Joey put his arm round Gilbert and shoulder to shoulder they pushed the bicycle up the steep slope. On the way Joey also persuaded him to join them that evening for supper. The Knights would be there, and Dolly and Prudence. Gilbert was, Joey insisted, Laura Knight’s absolutely favourite man.

  ‘After A.J.?’

  ‘Oh, of course, but it’s an absolute fact you are, and she makes a particular point of saying so to all and sundry. Dolly is also … intrigued.’

  ‘Oh Dolly is, is she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Just before they turned down to the mill it started to pour, which cooled Gilbert’s blushes. They sheltered under a canopy of trees, by a padlocked gate. Gilbert noticed a dead jackdaw at his feet: his chattering, fluttering days were now over.

  ‘Gilbert?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The rain poured and Joey’s voice sounded different, though his face was a picture of innocence.

  ‘Do you mind telling me what you think of my sister?’

  There was a perplexing pause.

  He had to be careful.

  Gilbert watched the rain fall, a scene of desolate beauty.

  He could not say oh I go to sleep with her on my mind, oh yes, I sleep next to her, in freshly starched sheets with a hint of drying lavender, I wake with her in my narrow bed, I show her the birds’ eggs, I tell her (only her) about the night we were surrounded by the Boers and lost eleven men, I ride with her on Merrilegs, with the scent of carted corn in the air and poppies still blooming, she holds me round my waist, her cheek pressed to my shoulder, I play long games of croquet with her and allow her to win, I interweave my fingers with hers on our walks up Rocky Lane, we look at patches of charlock and circle the Merry Maidens hand in hand and find a place out of the wind just over from Tregiffian and she tells me she—